


pyrrhic victory

by smallredboy



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Gen, Gun Violence, Victory Tour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 09:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17864804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/pseuds/smallredboy
Summary: Rue is at District 12 for her Victory Tour.





	pyrrhic victory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wildcard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wildcard/gifts).



> participating in purimgifts was fun!! its been great to revisit this series i havent touched or written fic for since years ago, and revisiting rue's character was great too!!
> 
> i hope you enjoy! <3

Rue knows going to District 12 will be hell.

She’s picked up a fake hobby to entertain the Capitol as they herald her as the youngest winner of the Hunger Games. She doesn't want them to have anything to do with her whistling abilities, even if they saw them. So she pretends to play instruments, to be a good musician apart from that one talent of hers.

She’s sick with it all as the days pass, as she’s made sure to look picture-perfect for the cameras. It’s a huge lie, sure, with how she just went through the horrors of this all. She saw Katniss be killed by a career, saw Thresh die, saw her world end before her own eyes.

And now she’s supposed to act like she’s happy. Like there aren’t days where she looks at the wild animals past the fences and thinks of Katniss telling her about hunting for her family. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to see Prim, who must be grieving her sister. Her sister who died in this battlefield.

The Victory Tour comes, eventually.

She goes through the rehearsed words, looks at the families in front of the holographs. There’s a holographic image of Katniss, her eyes just as determined as when she was still alive— there are her mother and Prim. They both look so lost, but there’s no anger, no spite towards Rue. Maybe it’s because she’s twelve. She’s Prim’s age.

To Ms. Everdeen, she is just a child being guided through this sick world.

And then there’s Peeta’s two brothers and his parents. Hopeless.

“Panem today. Panem tomorrow. Panem forever.”

She wants to help, somehow— she knows Prim and her mother will be troubled, moneywise, that Prim will have to ask for tesserae, and it makes her ache. But the repercussions will be all too much; she’s just a kid, she shouldn’t be going through this. Nothing of this should be happening.

“I’m sorry,” she says, tears pricking at her eyes.

Someone in the crowd yells, “She’s just a little girl!” and the Peacekeepers head towards the man who shouted that, and her world goes all fuzzy and her head pounds as she hears the sound of a gunshot.  
  
As soon as Chaff pulls her inside, she rushes to the bathroom and throws up, her head spinning. She can’t do this for another ten districts before she’s taken back home. She can’t do this, she can’t deal with seeing dead people make eye contact with her, have their families make eye contact with her.

“I can’t do this,” she breathes out, holding onto Chaff that night. There’s nobody else to comfort her— she can’t speak to her siblings, to her parents. Not yet, anyway.

“Shh,” he says. “I know. I couldn’t either. You’ll live through this.”  
  
She shakes like a leaf, buries her face on his chest. “I don’t want to live through this.”  
  
Chaff squeezes her shoulder. “You will have to.” 

It makes her sick just how right he is.


End file.
